Articles Tagged: Brunei Muara Metro Service

Last month, it was announced that there would an overhaul to the current bus system in Brunei. With the topic of public transport on our minds, we decided to revisit our earlier post from December, where we created a map for an imaginary Brunei-Muara Metro Service. In this post, we share the responses we received and collected across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and of course comments right here on Open Brunei.

We at Open Brunei reflected on our experiences of the Singapore MRT and the London Underground, and wondered what a metro service (or MRT/LRT) system would look like for Brunei. Where would the stations be? How many lines would there be? And how would it all fit together?

And so, using the data available to us, we propose to you – drumroll, please – a metro service for the Brunei-Muara district.

The metro routes were first created on Google Maps. The lines focused on the Brunei-Muara district and was created by following major roads, and also going through shopping or recreational areas. View the final map here.

After working out the typical routes, which was created arbitrarily with no statistical or qualitative basis, we took into account residential areas such as Mata-Mata or Manggis. We considered how people would get to work or school, or go from their houses to public places for food or recreation.

As mentioned under “Populations” in our main article Brunei-Muara Metro Service: A Proposal, it was only much later that we ‘analysed’ the residential populations near each station. We realised that some areas were left out despite their sizable residential populations. (Read the section on “Station Names” below for more info.) However, we believe that the residents could be served by a complementary transport system, such as buses, shuttle boats, or bicycles.

The topic of public transport has been discussed often in Brunei. Specifically, it tends to veer towards the usage of cars as the main method of transport in Brunei, as well as the high ratio of car ownership.

Without getting into specifics, car usage is a concern to Brunei due to: effects to the environment, energy use, traffic conditions, spending habits of Bruneians, investment on road infrastructure and road safety, and among others issues. The Government is aware of the challenges.